Apprentice winner Stella English had “no job”

Jennifer Cockerell

A WINNER of TV show The Apprentice said today she had thought of leaving the show starring Lord Sugar but felt she had invested too much time in it to drop out.

Stella English, 34, also gave up a high flying career in the City when she was named as a semi-finalist on series six of the hit BBC1 show.

File photo dated 5/3/13 of Stella English outside a constructive dismissal hearing she brought against Lord Sugar at an East London Employment Tribunal Service at Anchorage House in East India Quay, London. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Wednesday March 6, 2013. The winner of TV show The Apprentice said today she had thought of leaving the show starring Lord Sugar but felt she had invested too much time in it to drop out. Stella English, 34, also gave up a high flying career in the City when she was named as a semi-finalist on series six of the hit BBC1 show. Ms English, who is suing Lord Sugar for constructive dismissal, had to carry out a four-month probationary period before she was eventually named the winner in December 2010. See PA story TRIBUNAL Sugar. Photo credit should read: Yui Mok/PA Wire

Ms English, who is suing Lord Sugar for constructive dismissal, had to carry out a four-month probationary period before she was eventually named the winner in December 2010.

She has told an employment tribunal that despite being paid £100,000 she had no clear role and only had basic administrative tasks to do when she worked in Lord Sugar’s Viglen division.

Ms English, of Whitstable, Kent, yesterday told the hearing at East London Employment Tribunal Service that on her first day at Viglen its chief executive, Bordan Tkachuk, told her: “There is no job.”

During cross-examination today she was asked by Seamus Sweeney, representing Lord Sugar, why she did not complain to the millionaire business mogul about how she was treated.

File photo dated 5/3/13 of Lord Sugar leaving a constructive dismissal hearing against him at an East London Employment Tribunal Service at Anchorage House in East India Quay, London. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Wednesday March 6, 2013. A winner of TV show The Apprentice said today she had thought of leaving the show starring Lord Sugar but felt she had invested too much time in it to drop out. Stella English, 34, also gave up a high flying career in the City when she was named as a semi-finalist on series six of the hit BBC1 show. Ms English, who is suing Lord Sugar for constructive dismissal, had to carry out a four-month probationary period before she was eventually named the winner in December 2010. See PA story TRIBUNAL Sugar. Photo credit should read: Yui Mok/PA Wire

She said: “I was in a trial period to win The Apprentice.

“What value is there in me going into a company I don’t know - whether I knew (she was going to win) or not - and then go and complain about people who have been working there a long time?

“I didn’t know at the time, within one month, how things were going to pan out.”

Asked by Mr Sweeney why she did not drop out of the process if she was so unhappy, she said: “That’s a very good question. It did cross my mind.”